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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638231">move your feet in time; put your hand in mine</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemicaxolotl/pseuds/anemicaxolotl'>anemicaxolotl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Community (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Ballet, Dancing, Fluff, M/M, Original Character(s), but like barely, childish tycoon, idk man i just love dancer!troy, so here's some self-indulgent fluff about him dancing around the world, that's it no plot just the power of dance, troy is sailing around the world</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:15:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,014</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28638231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anemicaxolotl/pseuds/anemicaxolotl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>5 dances Troy learns, and 1 he teaches.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>117</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>move your feet in time; put your hand in mine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>i. samba</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Rio de Janeiro, Brazil</strong>
</p><p>Troy doesn’t care how much extra time it adds to his trip around the world. LeVar was <em>so right </em>to insist on being in Brazil for Carnival. </p><p>Sailing around the world, so far, has been going much better than Troy expected, but the boat is a little cramped, and Troy has always had too much energy for small spaces. He misses the Greendale campus and its football field, but mostly he misses the Dreamatorium. Or, more accurately, he misses his best friend, who somehow managed to harness the space of an entire universe in just a hundred square feet. </p><p>Here in Rio, though, Troy finally feels like his energy has an outlet. The streets are packed with people lined shoulder-to-shoulder to dance and watch parade floats drive by, and if he wants to bounce on his toes or dance around a little, no one gives him a strange glance. In fact, they join him in his movements, mirror his steps with a cheer and a smile.  </p><p>A group of dancers on the street sees him grooving along with the crowd and coaxes him into the road. Troy watches their movements with interest, the quick steps and arm waves and hip swivels that make up what he’s pretty sure is called the samba. </p><p>He’s not sure he can get his feet to move as fast as they’re supposed to go. The other dancers move like lightning, their heels flashing in the pulsing lights of the parade floats. But his hips catch the rhythm with ease, and soon he’s flowing in sync with the women around him, who whistle and cheer him on as he matches their movements, faster and faster.</p><p>He’s sweating by the time the song ends, but he’s beaming, and the dancers around him squeeze his arm and compliment him (he’s pretty sure) in Portuguese before melting seamlessly back into the parade. Breathless, Troy drifts back to LeVar and leans against the wall beside him.</p><p>“Not bad,” he says to Troy with a grin. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”</p><p>“I took a lot of dance classes back at Greendale,” he says. “Back home.”</p><p>LeVar nods, impressed, and turns back to the parade, the towering floats and feathered dancers and bold displays of color bursting from every corner of the road.</p><p>Troy tilts his head back so he can see the scene more clearly, every frame unfolding in front of him like a technicolor dream.</p><p>He thinks, for perhaps the millionth time so far on this trip, <em>I wish Abed was here to see this.</em></p><p>
  <strong>ii. kizomba</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Cape Town, South Africa</strong>
</p><p>A pretty young woman named Jade with long box braids strikes up a conversation with Troy one night at a bar. She tells him she goes to NYU and is studying abroad with her classmates; he tells her he’s on a cruise with a friend, which is far easier than the real story and yet feels close enough to the truth. He buys their next round of drinks, and they sip and talk and laugh. After a while, she nods to her friends out on the dance floor.</p><p>“Ever heard of kizomba?” she asks. “It’s an Angolan street dance. My roommate has family in Portugal and it’s huge there. She goes to this festival they have every year.”</p><p>When Troy shakes his head, she smiles and holds out a hand. “I’m a good teacher,” she offers, and he accepts her hand with a grin.</p><p>She leads him to the dance floor and presses her whole body against his, heartbeat to heartbeat and legs intertwining. “I’m not trying to make a move on you,” she says with a quirk of her eyebrow. “I promise this is just how the dance works.”</p><p>Troy nods and lets her drape her arms around his neck, winding his own arms around her back to hold her close. She’s warm and soft and sweet-smelling in his arms, and she asks if he’s okay before they start to move.</p><p>The steps are simple - it kind of reminds him of the tango, or what he remembers of the tango from his time in Buenos Aires, but the movements are even more sensual. Jade’s hips roll against his in a soft, stirring motion as their bodies give and take against each other. He’s supposed to be leading, but she spins him in slow, winding circles, leading him across the dance floor closer to her friends.</p><p>“You’re really good at this,” she says admiringly, and he feels his face warm under the compliment.</p><p>It’s an incredibly intimate dance, particularly to be sharing with a stranger, he thinks. She’s so gentle with him that he’s not uncomfortable, but he finds himself wishing he could share this with someone else – someone who’d roll their hips against him and then lean in and whisper against his neck, leading a trail of words up to his ear in a soft suggestion to get off the dance floor and head somewhere more inviting, like a bed. He feels inexplicably lonely considering how close he is to another person.</p><p>When the song ends, Jade trades him off to one of her friends, who presses herself close and similarly compliments his dancing, the sensuality in his movements. He’s passed off to a few more partners through the next few songs, and then more drinks are had before they pick back up on the floor.</p><p>The drinks and the dancing have him feeling good, and he stays out later than he means to before finally calling it a night. He taps his new friend on the shoulder and lets her know he’s heading out.</p><p>She gives him a hug and wishes him a fun trip. “Find me on Facebook! I’ll be here all semester, if you decide to come back and want a dance partner again.”</p><p>“I might hold you to that.” Troy smiles, squeezing her tight before giving one final wave and heading out into the night alone. </p><p>
  <strong>iii. Bollywood</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Vrindavan, India</strong>
</p><p>Troy’s beard is blue. When he shakes his head, confetti-colored clouds fall out of his hair and burst like fireworks around him. He can’t stop smiling.</p><p>“I’m making you my travel agent for the rest of my life,” he yells to LeVar, who laughs. </p><p>Carnival had been such a success that, nearly a year later, when LeVar had suggested staying in India for Holi, Troy didn’t hesitate to say yes. They had safely docked the <em>Childish Tycoon </em>for a week so they could travel inland for the festivities. On their way to the city, Priya, a kind young woman acting as their guide and translator for the week, had explained the significance of the Holi festival to them: the triumph of good over evil, the arrival of spring, the celebration of love. </p><p>Now, Troy is standing in a street surrounded by blooming clouds of powdered paint in colors brighter than anything he could ever conjure in the Dreamatorium, and he feels it all - goodness and joyfulness and the hope that comes with spring and <em>love, </em>so much love for strangers he’ll never see again after today. As they pass by him on the street, they rub more pigment onto his clothes, in his hair, over his face, and he laughs out of sheer emotion.</p><p>He joins Priya out of the way of the larger crowds, where she has moved to join a group of people dancing with an exuberant kind of joy.</p><p>“What kind of dance is this?” he asks, and she smiles.</p><p>“There’s no specific choreography,” she says, “but you might recognize some of the moves from Bollywood movies, if you’ve seen any. Or even <em>Slumdog Millionaire,” </em>she adds helpfully.</p><p>Troy hides his wince with a smile, always regretting those early days he’d spent calling Abed “Slumdog” before he had finally said to Troy, without a hint of anger in his voice, “You know I’m not even Indian, right? So calling me Slumdog doesn’t really make sense.”</p><p>Shaking his head now, Troy says to Priya, “Can you show me?”</p><p>She smiles and stands in front of him and grabs his hands, gently moving his fingers into intricate shapes with beautiful, complex names, whispering the corresponding English phrases: peacock, deer, lotus. Troy holds his arms up in front of his chest as he tries to mirror her delicate gestures: peacock, deer, lotus, his hands transforming again and again.</p><p>And in spite of himself, when he starts dancing with Priya and the rest of the crowd, he feels a part of himself begin to wash away. Priya had said spring was the time for newness, for rebirth, and Troy feels new here, like the colors he’s covered with are signaling some transformation of his own. </p><p>But God, through all the joy, he misses Abed. He imagines him here, amid the noise and chaos of the street, a little overwhelmed but also awestruck at the scenes unfolding around him. He pictures himself touching Abed’s face, smearing red across his forehead, leaving a streak of blue against his cheek. He doesn’t really know why he wants that so badly, and then all at once he does. </p><p>The feeling hits him fiercely when he realizes what it means, and he thinks it should make him sad or scared, but here, today, all he feels is <em>more </em>joy, <em>more </em>love, in a way he’ll never be able to put into words.</p><p>
  <strong>iv. ballet</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Paris, France</strong>
</p><p>The Airbnb Troy books in Paris is a small apartment situated above a ballet studio. Maybe he just booked the cheapest two-bedroom he could find, but he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a certain draw for him. </p><p>There’s so much to do in Paris that most nights Troy just stumbles right up the stairs to the apartment impossibly late, sometimes with LeVar, sometimes alone, and falls right into bed. But one evening, he comes home to change for dinner and lingers in the hallway separating the dance studio from the stairs. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he steps inside.</p><p>Past the small front office is a room with polished wooden floors and a wall of sweeping mirrors. Inside, a couple is performing some kind of duet. It takes Troy a minute to realize both dancers - the tall one with his hair in twists and the shorter one with the topknot - are men. </p><p>Troy holds his breath as the partners move together, separate but linked in motion, like a pair of lungs. The scene ends when the shorter dancer collapses elegantly into the arms of his taller partner, his body dramatically arcing to the floor. Without dropping his pose, he calls over his shoulder in heavily accented English, “Have you come to spy on us?”</p><p>Troy jumps a little. “No! No, sorry, I’m just renting upstairs right now, um…” He scratches the back of his neck. “I actually used to be a dancer. Not nearly as good as you guys, though. That was really cool to watch.”</p><p>The men gesture for him to come closer. As he enters the room, he scrambles to remember anything Madame LeClair taught him about ballet through the years. “That dance you were doing, was that the, uh, the a la carte?” he asks.</p><p>The shorter man laughs as his partner replies kindly, “Do you mean the pas de deux? It’s the part of the ballet danced between two people.”</p><p>“Pas de deux,” Troy says quickly. “Right, like in <em>The Nutcracker. </em>I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with two dudes before, though.”</p><p>“This one is meant to be danced by a man and a woman. There aren’t many pas de deux created with two men in mind,” the taller dancer says. “But then, there weren’t many pas de deux created with Black men in mind, either. Especially not Black men dancing with white partners.”</p><p>“Not until Balanchine did it with <em>Agon,</em>” the shorter man adds. “Revolutionary. Balanchine liked to push the envelope. So we take his work and push it a little further.”</p><p>“We were doing the pas de deux from <em>Swan Lake,” </em>his partner explains. “Balanchine’s best work. With our own twist, of course.”</p><p>Troy knows <em>Swan Lake, </em>but he never imagined it could be done with two men. When he thinks ballet, he thinks of dainty girls like Britta in tutus and white tights being held aloft by tall, strong guys - maybe guys that look like Jeff, if Jeff wore tights. </p><p>But here are two men - one who almost looks like he could be Troy’s French older brother - breaking all the rules Troy has come to know about ballet. These dancers are both strong, but agile, both delicate, but fierce. Whatever happens between them happens in equal balance, push and pull, give and take. </p><p>He really never even considered that he could dance this way with another man, but now he can’t stop picturing it, the way it must feel to have someone throw all his trust into your waiting arms while you guide his body through the air.</p><p>He must be staring now, because the taller man asks, “Would you like to learn some of the steps to the pas de deux?”</p><p>“Oh!” Troy’s brain freezes as it tries to anticipate what role he would play here, the lifter or the lifted. He never had a choice like that before. “Uh, that would be cool, but can I watch you guys again first?”</p><p>The men smile as they restart the music and fall into step together again. </p><p>There’s an ache growing in Troy’s chest as he watches them unfurl and bloom around each other that reminds him of the loneliness he felt in Cape Town, dancing the kizomba with a woman he barely knew. He’s met so many incredible people on this trip, dozens of strangers in more countries than he can count, and all of them had been kind and curious and eager to help Troy however they could. </p><p>And yet none of them could help ease that strange feeling of being lost at sea, the one that settled into his bones the second he pulled away from Greendale. He knows the cause, but the problem is, he doesn’t know if the cure will be available to him by the time he makes it back home.</p><p>***</p><p>“How far are we from Poland?” he asks LeVar that night as they’re poring over their maps and travel plans. </p><p>“Sailing? A distance like that might take five hours,” he answers, drawing a line between the two countries in red Sharpie for Troy to see. “But it’s only a two-hour flight. Why, thinking of making a pit stop on our way home?”</p><p>Troy knows it’s not on their way home at all, and he knows LeVar knows it too. Still, he shrugs noncommittally. “Might be cool,” he says, and leaves it at that for the night.</p><p>
  <strong>v. polka</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Krakow, Poland</strong>
</p><p>With its candy-colored buildings and cobblestone streets, Krakow kind of looks like something out of a fairy tale. Troy is immediately wistful. Of all the cinematic places he has seen so far on his trip, he thinks this is the one Abed would like the most, the one he is closest to at heart without ever having actually seen it. On the streets around him, the language bounces off his ears, unintelligible to him but familiar nonetheless. </p><p>He misses Abed with an intensity that takes his breath away. </p><p>“Abed speaks Polish perfectly,” he tells LeVar, not for the first time, after haltingly ordering lunch at a small cafe. </p><p>LeVar smiles knowingly. He’s been so good on this trip, putting up with Troy’s incessant chatter, his homesickness, his not-infrequent crying jags, his wonderstruck ramblings. LeVar probably knows more about Abed than anybody at Greendale does at this point. </p><p>“Maybe you’ll pick up a few phrases here you can bring back to him,” he says brightly.</p><p>Troy shakes his head. “Nah, my friends know I’m terrible at languages. That’s why they gave me that translator.” He pauses. “Although there might be something else I can do while we’re here, instead.”</p><p>***</p><p>“You’ve sure done a lot of dancing on this trip,” LeVar finally says one evening near the end of their journey. “What do you like about it so much?”</p><p>There’s no judgement or criticism behind his words, but Troy still considers the question for a while, rolling it over in his mind before answering. His typical cop-out answer - <em> ’Cause it’s cool - </em>seems inadequate here.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I’m pretty good at it, so it’s easy to stick with it. And it’s one of the first things I ever really did for myself, so…”</p><p>He doesn’t realize how true it is until the words are out of his mouth.</p><p>“It’s funny,” he continues when LeVar doesn’t speak, only nods in understanding, “how selfish I was growing up – like, I never knew how to do anything <em> for </em> other people – but I never did anything for myself, either. So what was I doing my whole life?”</p><p>LeVar shrugs gamely. “Hey, at least you know how to go after what you want now, right?”</p><p>That old ache creeps into Troy’s chest again. He thinks of lab rats and pillow forts, A/C repair schools and strange bequeathments and things he’s given up, and he thinks of everything he still wants<em> so badly, </em>things that feel closer now than they ever did back home.</p><p>“I think I’m learning,” he says finally, and leaves it at that.</p><p>
  <strong>+ i.</strong>
</p><p>Abed’s downstairs neighbors are going to kill him after all this stomping around, Troy’s pretty sure, but Abed doesn’t seem to mind. He’s watching his feet, but he’s smiling this wide, unexpected smile, and sometimes when Troy spins him too quickly he laughs in surprise as his grip on Troy’s shoulder tightens.</p><p>When the lively music dies down, Troy and Abed find themselves leaning against each other, laughing and trying to catch their breath. “That was awesome. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t believe you never told me you can dance the polka,” Troy pants, his grip still tight on Abed’s waist. </p><p>Abed shrugs. “Dancing was always your thing,” he says easily, before adding, “But it’s really cool that you learned it just for me.”</p><p>Troy grins, partly from joy and mostly because he just can’t believe he’s <em>here: </em>in LA, in Abed’s own apartment, in Abed’s arms, sharing a dance with his best friend, a dance they both know from two separate chapters of their lives, a time before they met and a time when they were worlds apart.</p><p>It’s a little overwhelming to think about the way the universe brought them together and pulled them apart only to bring them right back together again, where they truly belong.</p><p>They stay locked in their same pose for a moment until Abed releases his grip on the hand that had been clutching Troy’s and moves it to Troy’s shoulder. Troy’s now-empty hand settles on Abed’s other hip, and for a moment they say nothing, simply stand and watch each other curiously.</p><p>Troy shifts from one foot to the other, slowly, and he watches Abed mirror him with nearly imperceptible movements, side to side. “Just like prom, right?” he chuckles softly.</p><p>“You would know,” Abed shrugs. “I never went.”</p><p>“Well, yeah, but you went to some kind of dance, right?”</p><p>“Not in high school. Not until Greendale,” Abed reminds Troy, and Troy can’t believe he’s forgotten something like that.</p><p>“Well, take it from a former prom king – you really didn’t miss much.” Troy moves his hands to Abed’s back and inches closer to his friend. “The best part was probably the dancing. And they didn’t even let you stand this close.”</p><p>“I think this is the first time I’ve ever slow danced with somebody,” Abed admits. “I mean, Annie and I danced together at a gala, but…that’s a long story. And that was real dancing. I’ve never done the cliché, high-school-gym slow dance before.” He frowns at his feet, his awkward side-to-side shuffle. “Am I doing this right?”</p><p>“There really isn’t a wrong way to slow dance like a high school couple,” Troy laughs.</p><p>Abed hums in easy agreement, leaning in to Troy and gently swaying with him. Troy starts to rotate them in a slow circle around through Abed’s small apartment.</p><p>“I learned so many cool dance styles while I was gone,” he says. “And the thing about dancing is you can do it by yourself, and you can do it without knowing the language, and it all still makes you feel really connected to people, you know?”</p><p>Abed smiles, and Troy continues, “But dancing can also be really, really lonely if you’re not doing it with the right person. Especially if you know who the right person should be, and you know you made a big mistake leaving them behind.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>They’ve stopped dancing by now. </p><p>Troy spent three years without Abed, so he knows he can do it, if he frightens Abed away and has to live without him again. It’s the not-knowing that he can’t deal with anymore, the fear of having missed an opportunity or run out of time to say what he means.</p><p>“So, a long time ago, someone very smart and very cool once asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and…it turns out my answer was spending time with him. That’s all I ever wanted to do, more than anything, and that still hasn’t changed. But I think I needed this trip around the world to really understand what that means. I had to figure out a lot of things about myself, and I’m okay with a lot of things I wasn’t okay with before.”</p><p>As Troy speaks, Abed keeps his face carefully blank, but Troy can see the glimmer of cautious optimism in his eyes, an unspoken hurt muffling something that almost looks like hope.</p><p>“Abed, all I want to do is be with you,” he whispers, his hands shaking a little where they rest against Abed’s waist.</p><p>His face stays still, but Troy can hear his sharp intake of breath, the tiny gasp his only indication of having heard Troy. He exhales on a long note, almost a sigh, before even attempting to speak.</p><p>“Troy, you have to tell me what you mean by that,” he says finally, his eyes scanning Troy’s face with a wild intensity.</p><p>Tightening his grip on Abed’s waist, Troy smiles shyly. “I mean I’m in love with you, Abed,” he says softly. </p><p>Abed’s eyes widen, and his hands move to cup Troy’s face gently, like he’s made of something delicate that could shatter without care, which, at the moment, feels true.</p><p>“Please don’t let this be a joke,” Abed whispers desperately before leaning in to press his lips to Troy’s.</p><p>Troy whimpers and wraps his arms around Abed’s back, squeezing him close until no space exists between their bodies. Kissing Abed is more than he ever dreamed it would be, because Abed kisses like he wants Troy just as badly as Troy wants him. And that’s a <em>stunning</em> thought, that maybe all this time Abed has been pining for him just the same. By the time they pull away, they’re both a little breathless as Abed rests his forehead against Troy’s.</p><p>“I’m in love with you, too,” he says quietly. “I’m sure that’s been painfully obvious for years now. I always wished I had said something sooner, but…now I’m glad I waited. I’m glad you figured things out.”</p><p>“I’m glad, too,” Troy whispers, and it’s so worth it to see the way a full grin breaks out across Abed’s face, unexpected and beautiful.</p><p>“You never finished showing me how to slow dance,” Abed says with a quiet laugh, sliding his hands down to rest on the small of Troy’s back, pulling him in close.</p><p>“Oh, right,” Troy says softly, still beaming, as he wraps his arms around Abed’s neck and leads him in slow circles around the room. “Let me teach you.”</p><p> </p>
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